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Saskatoon distilleries team up to make hand sanitizer
A pair of Saskatoon-based distilleries are teaming up and retooling to start manufacturing alcohol-based hand sanitizer in the face of the global coronavirus pandemic. Lucky Bastard Distillers and Stumbletown Distilling aim to produce their first bottles of emergency hand sanitizer this week, according to Lucky Bastard co-owner Michael Goldney (HOSADM'98, MD'02).
By Alex MacPherson | Saskatoon Star PhoenixA pair of Saskatoon-based distilleries are teaming up and retooling to start manufacturing alcohol-based hand sanitizer in the face of the global coronavirus pandemic, as reported by the Saskatoon Star Phoenix.
Lucky Bastard Distillers and Stumbletown Distilling aim to produce their first bottles of emergency hand sanitizer this week, according to Lucky Bastard co-owner Michael Goldney (HOSADM'98, MD'02).
The virus has a lipid envelope and is “very susceptible” to soap and water, meaning hand washing should be the first line of defence, said Goldney, who is also a medical doctor.
However, many essential workers do not always have immediate access to soap and running water, hence the need for hand sanitizer, he said Thursday in an interview.
“For that reason, we recognized right away that we have limited production capacity, let’s take care of those people first and we are distributing the product to first responders,” he said.
“It’s not that easy,” he noted of the work necessary to retool a distillery to make hand sanitizer.
Despite some difficulty procuring sufficient quantities of hydrogen peroxide, Goldney said the distilleries now have enough alcohol and other ingredients such as distilled water to make 6,000 litres.
The resulting sanitizer, which is made according to the World Health Organization’s emergency recipe, will be shipped out in a variety of ways in 1.14-litre bottles, he said.
Read more at https://thestarphoenix.com/.